


Dating Craft

by hellkitty



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 12:52:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9272633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: A little mid-Avengers Movies fluff.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chlare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlare/gifts).



“Do you want to go dancing?” He was pacing, nervous. He jammed his hands in his pockets, then pulled them out again.

“No. Try again. No one goes dancing on a first date anymore.” Natasha pursed her lips, swiveling the chair to follow him as he paced around the upper floor of Avengers Tower.

Steve suppressed—badly—the groan.  “What’s wrong with dancing? You don’t have to talk to each other, and there’s music and, well…dancing.” How could anyone not like dancing?

“Dancing’s changed, Steve. The last thing you want is to have some girl twerking on you.”

“Fair point.” He’d seen twerking when Sam had introduced him to music videos.  And while he couldn’t say he might not enjoy it, it was certainly not, well, first date material.  He was beginning to wonder if he, himself, was first date material. He’d thought asking a girl out was hard before, when he was small and sick. Of all the things that hadn’t gotten easier…! “All right, how about ‘Could I take you out to dinner?’” 

Natasha shook her head. She’d agreed to help him practice, treating it like proper tradecraft, but now he was really regretting it. She was a harsh taskmistress.

“Lunch? Drinks?”

Another headshake, and she folded her body up on the chair, hooking a heel on the chair’s edge, resting her chin on her knee.

“Coffee?” He could hear his voice rise in frustration.  Then again, the last time he’d asked a girl for coffee…Nick Fury had ended up getting shot in his apartment. Sure, it hadn’t been a linear development, but clearly coffee had been too pushy for Sharon. “What’s wrong with coffee?!”

“Too much pressure,” Natasha said. 

“Pressure. It’s coffee. You sit. You drink. You talk.” If he couldn’t go dancing, that seemed like a reasonable alternative.  If too cheap. A girl deserved to have some money spent on her, didn’t she?

“Precisely.” Natasha sat up, poking at him with a finger. “People feel they have to be ‘on’. Interesting. Worth your time. They feel like you’re judging them.”

“That’s ridiculous.”  Maybe Natasha’s years of spying and deception had, well, colored her impression. 

“It’s too much attention, Steve. Most people don’t want that.”

“You’re making me feel like a narcissist, here, Nat.”  How could people not want someone else’s full attention? 

She laughed.  “All I’m saying is you need to think of something no-pressure.” 

“An art museum?” No? Really? What could be less pressure than looking at beautiful things together?  “Like what, then?” Because he was fresh out of ideas. 

“Like watching a movie.”

Steve scoffed. “They don’t even show cartoons anymore.”  He loved movies—always had—but movies were hard to share with someone in the moment. You might as well see the movie in different theaters and talk about it later—if you were even allowed to talk about it in these new rules. 

A mischievous glint came into Natasha’s eyes.  “Are you a cartoon fan, then?”

“Don’t try to change the subject, Nat.  Unless you want me to give the whole thing up.” Which, at this point, was probably the better part of valor. 

“What’s wrong with a movie?” Natasha countered. “It’s quiet, it’s dark, you don’t have to do a lot of talking, and, well, no one’s actually obligated to watch the movie.” Her mouth curved into a smile that seemed innocent for the first two seconds, but then slipped into something, well, a little predatory. 

Steve swallowed around a sudden lump of something in his throat, fumbling for words that would drag this conversation to safer territory. “There’s probably the issue of what movie.”  He distinctly remembered Clint complaining about something called ‘chick flicks’ and ‘Lifetime channel’. 

“True,” she said, settling back in her chair, stretching her legs out.  “There’s horror, if you want to play the big protective type, and she likes being scared.  Romance, but that might be a little obvious.  Comedies, well, some of the jokes can be a little crude.”

He frowned. This sounded like a minefield. 

“Hey,” Natasha sat up again. “Didn’t you used to star in movies? Maybe you could whip out one of your old films.”

“…I don’t think ‘whipping’ anything out is appropriate.”  He hadn’t thought of those movies in years, not since he’d actually started fighting for real. He’d been so proud of them when he’d made them. He’d sat in audiences, basking in the idea that he was doing some good, boosting morale, giving people some hard-earned escape.  Now…he wasn’t sure he wanted to see them again. 

“Oh?” She pulled over a keyboard. “I wonder if I can find any in the old film archive.” 

He slammed a hand down over the keyboard. “I’m pretty sure they were all destroyed.”

She laughed. “Such a bad liar, Rogers.” 

“Come on, Nat. This is embarrassing enough.” 

Her laugh faded for a moment.  But just for a moment. “Maybe you’re going to have to bribe me, if you want me to forget about them.” 

“Bribe you with what? Seems like you have all the cards here.” 

“I might, at that.” She swiveled the chair around, catching him with an outstretched leg, shaking her auburn hair from her eyes. “But, I’ve never been dancing.” 


End file.
